


A Familiar Rain

by Paganpunk2



Category: Father Brown (2013)
Genre: Bad Weather, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Family, Family Bonding, Family Feels, Family Fluff, Female Bonding, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Injury Recovery, Major Character Injury, Maternal Instinct, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-23
Updated: 2020-11-23
Packaged: 2021-03-10 06:14:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 17,769
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27678602
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Paganpunk2/pseuds/Paganpunk2
Summary: When the storm of the century strikes Kembleford, Lady Felicia, Mrs. McCarthy, and Sid find themselves stranded with adversaries both old and new. If they can't band together and overcome them, it may well lead to the saddest day of Father Brown's life... (Spoiler: no character death)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 14





	1. Lady Felicia

**Author's Note:**

> In searching for a title for this story, I came across a quote from John Geddes' 'A Familiar Rain,' which reads "I don't just wish you rain, Beloved; I wish you the beauty of storms." This quote, and the title of the novel it is part of, were too perfect of a match with this story for me to ignore.

The conservatory was, without a doubt, Felicia’s favorite part of the Montague estate. She hadn’t had anything to do with the large greenhouse’s original construction, but she felt that she would have gotten along quite well with the Victorian Lady Montague who had. 

It sat some distance from the manor proper – too far, many people sniffed, because who wanted one’s gardening retreat to be closer to the garage than to the house? – and felt like a world unto itself. The building’s orientation on a low ridge above Montague House lent it an unusual prominence. The designer had chosen delicate but strong oak framing for the high ceiling vaults, which softened the conservatory’s aspect. Every other conservatory of its age, at least in Felicia’s experience, featured cast iron framing that made one feel as if they were in a cage. In hers, though, one could look up at the wood and make believe that they were still outside, underneath a series of surprisingly straight-limbed trees. 

She credited some of the massive success with which her lawn parties always met to these sylvan heights. Another share of the kudos, though, had to be given to what Felicia had achieved at ground level. Her skill with seed and soil was as well known around Kembleford as Mrs. McCarthy’s prowess with flour and sugar, and today she was presenting her version of strawberry scones.

“I can never lay eyes on your conservatory, Lady Felicia,” admitted Mrs. McCarthy as they approached, “without having to confess to jealousy on the following Sunday.” 

“It _is_ gorgeous, isn’t it?” The conservatory’s many hundreds of panes were glinting like diamonds in the late afternoon light. Soon, she knew, they would glow pink, simultaneously reflecting and improving upon the sunset. On party nights ten thousand tiny fairy lights would turn the place into a beacon of brightness and fun. She never managed to see the dawn after those happiest of soirees, but she believed that the building must be as fresh-peach-hued then as it was on every early morning she did witness. “In fact,” Felicia joked, “I sometimes think my first sight of it was the exact moment when I decided that Monty would make quite a good husband, after all.” 

“The giant house ain’t such a bad perk, either,” Sid threw in from behind them.

“No,” Mrs. McCarthy agreed, “but this is a better one. There is a reason why the Lord saw fit to start humanity off in a garden that grew year-round rather than in a brick mansion.”

“Huh. And here I was, thinking we didn’t pick up gardening ‘til _after_ we got kicked out of Eden.”

Mrs. McCarthy’s chin rose. “Well, I count the conservatory as a blessing, Sidney, whatever order it came along in.”

“Course, Mrs. M. Whatever makes you happy. I’m just saying.”

Felicia bit back an amused hum. “Oh, hush, Sid,” she said, beating Mrs. McCarthy to a chiding. She threw an affectionate smile back over her shoulder. “You’ll ruin the analogy.”

Sid tipped her a conspiratorial wink. “Wouldn’t want to do that.” Then he quickened his pace and dashed a short distance ahead to open the door for them. “Ladies,” he said, bowing elaborately.

Sometimes, Felicia mused as she passed inside, Sid really was completely excessive. It was one of the things she adored most about him. “Thank you,” Mrs. McCarthy said behind her. The words were spoken primly, but it was clear that her annoyance was already softening. “...Oh, my, that palm must have grown a foot since I last saw it! Have you had it measured recently?”

Mrs. McCarthy had never yet been able to step foot inside the conservatory without making the rounds and admiring everything. The side effect of this was that what should have been a brief visit to see the Montague donations for next weekend’s church fair turned into an hour-long ramble along the conservatory’s winding stone paths. Felicia didn’t mind. Tours of this building were one of the few activities that she and Mrs. McCarthy could engage in together without ever coming to a disagreement, and when they were of an accord she really did enjoy the other woman’s company. 

Flower-viewing was a pleasurable pastime for them, but Felicia didn’t understand why Sid had come along. He never refused to help her shuffle bags of fertilizer around or re-pot heavy plants, even though those activities were well outside of his job description, but he didn’t generally spend his free time admiring her floral handiwork. He was still in uniform from running her into Kembleford earlier, but that was no reason for him to follow her around. She wasn’t likely to want to jaunt off somewhere straight from here, after all. Honestly, Felicia had thought that Sid would stay behind at the house with Father Brown, whom they’d left on the edge of a post-tea doze in the south drawing room. Today would hardly have been the first time that she and Mrs. McCarthy had returned from the conservatory to find both men snoring on the silk sofas.

As if his choice of company wasn’t unusual enough, he seemed distracted. Occasionally he poked at a bloom or a leaf - “what’s this ‘un, then?” - and appeared to file the answer away for later. Mostly, though, he squinted up through the roof and walls, as if all the foliage was getting in the way of the view. 

Mrs. McCarthy cornered him about his behavior after they reached the conservatory’s staging area. It was here that the bougainvillea cuttings and the live hanging baskets that would hopefully fetch good prices for St. Mary’s were awaiting examination. Sid loitered, walking up and down the aisles between the oversized worktables as the two women discussed starting bids. He stared outside even more intently now that there were fewer tall plants to block his gaze. “Sidney,” the parish secretary sighed as he squeezed by them for about the hundredth time, “what on earth has gotten into you?”

He paused. “Eh?”

“You’re pacing like some kind of caged wild animal. It is extremely distracting.”

“Oh. Am I? Sorry.” Sid scratched the back of his head, his expression almost bashful. “I’ll stop.” 

He did stop, but Felicia remained distracted. Sid might have been standing still now, but his deep interest in the sky hadn’t slackened. If anything, he seemed to be having more trouble than ever deciding which direction he should look in. The owl-like swiveling of his head was more disconcerting than his brushing past them had ever been. “...What is it, Sid?” 

Mrs. McCarthy, cut off mid-sentence, huffed. Then she caught sight of the vertical line that had appeared between Sid’s eyebrows. “I daresay I know that look. You had too many sweets at tea, didn’t you?”

“He only ate half the cake, Mrs. McCarthy,” Felicia replied lightly. Maybe she could jolly him out of whatever was bothering him. “That’s a little less than normal for Sid, wouldn’t you say?” 

Any other time, her teasing would have drawn some sort of reaction. Today, though, Sid’s attention was riveted to the roof. When he failed to retort or chuckle or even so much as crack a smirk, Felicia spoke his name with greater insistence. “Sid. What’s wrong?”

“I’m telling you, it must have been the cake,” fretted Mrs. McCarthy. “And Father Brown had almost as much...he’s probably lying comatose in the drawing room.” 

Felicia felt a little pinch of aggravation. “You say that as if there was something _wrong_ with the cake.”

“It _was_ a little over-sweet.”

“Oh, is that why you had a second serving?”

Mrs. McCarthy drew herself up. “I-”

“It’s not the cake.” Sid shook his head. “I don’t know what it is. It’s just...this funny feeling.”

“What funny feeling?” pressed Mrs. McCarthy. “Now, don’t you dare go taking unwell less than a week before the fair. If you can’t help with the set-up, the Father will be out there on ladders and such trying to do it himself.”

“I’m fine, Mrs. M. It’s the air that’s not right.” He looked at each of them in turn. “Don’t you feel it?”

“Feel what?” Perhaps Mrs. McCarthy was onto something with her worry that Sid was taking ill, though Felicia was sure it had _nothing_ to do with the cake.

“Just...like something’s coming. Like when-” 

“When what?” Mrs. McCarthy pressed after he broke off.

“Nothin’,” he answered, his tone evasive. “It’s giving me the all-overs, that’s all.” And Sid’s gaze wandered upward again. 

Mrs. McCarthy had had enough. She marched around the worktable and up to Sid. When he glanced down at her, she took the opportunity to reach up and feel his forehead. “...Well, you’re not feverish,” she ruled after a moment. “But honestly, that just raises more questions. No more fooling around, Sidney; what is all this nonsense you’re talking about?”

“I dunno, do I?” Sid shrugged, but there was an uncharacteristic tension in his shoulders. “It’s just this sense I’ve had all day, off-and-on like.”

If he’d felt out-of-sorts all day, Felicia ached to point out, then it definitely wasn’t the cake’s fault. She held her tongue, though, and looked skyward instead. Clouds had rolled in while they were occupied in the conservatory, and now she realized that it was a fair bit darker inside than was normal at this hour. It must have happened so gradually over the last hour that her eyes had adjusted along the way. She flicked a switch on the wall and brought a series of bright lamps to life. “It looks like a rainstorm.”

Sid shook his head once more. “Feels like something else to me, Lady F.” He turned to read the sky again, but the lamplight had turned the glass opaque. 

Mrs. McCarthy was beginning to look nervous. “Maybe we should start back now. We don’t want to get caught out here if it _is_ about to rain.”

Even at a quick pace it would take them ten minutes to regain the house. “I have an umbrella around somewhere, I think,” Felicia remarked. “We'd better take it with us.” 

They all searched the cluttered work area for the umbrella. Just as Mrs. McCarthy announced her success, a massive roll of thunder shook the conservatory. The parish secretary jumped several inches into the air. “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” she muttered, crossing herself as the faint rattle of glass faded away above them. 

Felicia grimaced. “Let’s hurry. Here, Sid,” she added, taking the umbrella from Mrs. McCarthy and pressing it into Sid’s hands. “You’re the least likely to lose it if the wind picks up.” Besides, she thought as he nodded distantly and squinted once more at the roof, he could use a task to focus on.

They were almost out of the work area and back into the conservatory proper when a _whiz-crunch_ sounded overhead. Close on its heels came another impact, but this time the whistle was followed by more of a _crack_. 

“...Hail,” Sid said in the quiet that followed. “Big hail. It’s...it’s just hail.”

“How funny,” Felicia wondered out loud. “They sounded so different. You would think one piece would sound the same as another, wouldn’t you?” 

Mrs. McCarthy was wringing her hands. “I hope no more than that fell down in the village. The church roof won’t be able to take much of that sort of thing.”

“Yeah, never mind all the glass we’re standing under,” said Sid. He had, Felicia noted, gone rather pale. 

“It must be done now, surely,” said Mrs. McCarthy. “Listen, the rain has started.” Indeed, a soft drizzle could be heard pattering down onto the panes. “There’s no telling how long it will last. We should start back before it gets any darker outside.”

Felicia looked to Sid. He’d said that he’d had a funny feeling, that something was coming. Maybe those few smacks of hail had been all he was worked up about. “...Sid?”

He licked his lips, uncertainty writ large on his face. “Could do. Sure. No!” he cried as Felicia took her first step. His hand shot out and latched around her wrist, not painfully, but with firmness. “Wait! Wait...” 

For a moment he stood stock-still, his head bowed as if he was listening intently to something fuzzy and far away. Another round of thunder broke overhead, sending a fresh tremor through the world. Sid’s fingers clenched.

“Sid!” Felicia gasped. “You’re hur-”

“Under the table.” His voice had become a growl. She had no chance to argue; he was already turning her around and pushing her to the floor. His grip on her wrist had loosened enough to relieve her pain, but she could feel the determination in it as he steered her. 

“Sid, what-”

“Get under the bloody table, I said! And stay there!” Sid finally released her, letting her thump the last few inches down to the ground in a rather ignoble fashion. Felicia had to scoot back to avoid his step as he whirled to search for Mrs. McCarthy. 

“Don’t just stand around, Mrs. M.!” he shouted when he saw that the parish secretary hadn’t budged. He grabbed her, too, and no more gently than he’d done with his employer. “Go on, underneath!” She didn’t argue, but instead let herself be forced onto her knees and under cover, staring at Sid all the while as if he’d lost his mind.

And hadn’t he? Sid could be uncouth sometimes, yes, but he wasn’t violent. It wasn’t in his nature to manhandle women into uncomfortable positions beneath dirt-smeared furniture. And yet his expression as he crawled in beside them was fierce, almost animal. Felicia couldn’t help but shrink away from it as Mrs. McCarthy, who had been shoved in on her other side, clucked with outrage. “Sidney Carter,” the older woman began, “I don’t know _what_ you think you’re doing, throwing people around like that, but I have never-”

It was at that moment that the power went out.

***************************************************************************************************************************************************

She didn’t mean to scream. The sudden blackness, though – it had grown much, much darker outside in the brief period since she’d turned on the lights – was too much on top of Sid’s extreme personality change. “There, there,” Mrs. McCarthy said, a trace of irritation underlining her soothing. She patted Felicia’s arm with blind clumsiness. “Come now, it’s only-”

 _Bam!_

A hiss sounded from Sid’s direction. Was he the one who’d produced the new noise? Had his inexplicable anger driven him to punch upward against the thick, scarred wood of the table, perhaps, and caused him to injure himself? 

But no, no, that couldn’t be it, because there were more noises now, crashes and bangs and the brittle, tinkling melody of shattering glass. The conservatory’s roof was crumbling, and the whistling the storm’s projectiles made when they fell became clearer with each passing second. The pots that were everywhere in the work room, some empty, some full, began to explode as they were hit. Soon Felicia couldn’t distinguish individual notes anymore; they all bled together into an impenetrable din that made her cover her ears and bury her face against her knees. 

“Oh, Lord, have mercy,” the parish secretary keened beside her. Felicia tried to focus on the other woman’s words, to match her as she moved through an Our Father, then a Hail Mary, then back around again. How many other people throughout history, she wondered wildly as her lips formed their prayers by rote, had spent their final moments on earth like this, cowering and pleading for the heavens to stop raining down wrath? 

The sound of glass soon ceased. Its absence deepened the storm’s rumble into a constant bass pounding that was punctuated by frequent loud bangs as another pot met its demise. The ground trembled, and the table under which they were crouching began to jitter sideways. Feeling it move, Felicia groped for a leg. Something cold and sharp slashed across her fingers almost immediately, drawing blood and causing her to snatch her hand away again. 

Déjà vu rose in the back of her mind. She’d done this before, braced herself in the darkness and prayed that the world above wouldn’t fall in and devour her. But last time there’d been bomb shelters and Tube stations to run to, places that provided more substantial protection than the wide worktable that was letting ice and glass and bits of broken pottery in on four sides. 

She slammed her eyes closed. This sort of thing was supposed to have gone now, to have been done, to have stayed fifteen years in the past. “No more,” she begged. “No more. Please.”

Over what felt like hours but couldn’t have been more than a few minutes, the terrible racket quietened. Felicia didn’t register the change in volume until she picked up on a thin whine that was coming from something much closer than the sky. “Stop, stop, stop, you cunty bastards, go the bloody fucking hell _awaaaaay_...”

Felicia’s eyes flew open. “Sid?!”

Mrs. McCarthy had heard him, too. As the ground began to still and the cacophony from above receded, Felicia felt the parish secretary move. “Come on,” she summoned Felicia, her voice terse and pained. “Help me with him.”

Felicia crawled as quickly as she could across the space that her earlier fear had put between her and Sid. A few shards of debris pinched her skin, but she ignored them. Those could be dealt with later, after she'd made that awful whimpering stop.

By the time they reached him he was the only thing still shaking. Except for Mrs. McCarthy’s hands, Felicia noted as the older woman tugged him close. And, she added a moment later when she pressed into their huddle and reached out towards him, her own.  
“There, there,” Mrs. McCarthy started up again, her hushing now carrying a motherly coo. Felicia could do little more than offer auxiliary comfort, touching him here and there when an opening appeared. She ached to do more, to pull the still-curled Sid into her own arms, but Mrs. McCarthy had him thoroughly enveloped. 

This made it doubly gratifying when Sid reacted to Felicia’s small caresses by shifting so that he could tuck his head in tight against her neck. “Thank you,” she whispered as she took part of his weight. She wasn't sure whom she was thanking – God, for stopping the torrent, perhaps, or maybe Sid, for fulfilling her vital need to succor him, or even Mrs. McCarthy, for lodging no objection to her greater participation in his care – but it didn’t matter, really. Gratitude seemed to be owed everywhere, to everything, in exchange for this moment of grace. "Hush,” she bade gently, stroking his hair. “Hush, it’s over now, it’s all right...” 

When he didn’t seem to take any solace from her promises, Felicia sent an anguished glance towards Mrs. McCarthy. Maybe it would have been better to leave him with the older, more experienced woman after all. But no; Sid had moved to _her_ for comfort, had wordlessly asked for _her_ protection. True, he hadn’t fully pulled away from Mrs. McCarthy, who was clutching his right hand as if it was a lifeline and still had his legs stretched over one of her bent knees, but he’d chosen _her_. So why, why wasn’t this working? 

Grief and despair – he was still shaking, shaking so hard that Felicia could hear his teeth chattering, shaking even though she couldn’t possibly hold him any more tightly than she was – stilled her tongue. When her words halted, Mrs. McCarthy tore her eyes from Sid’s bowed and buried face and met Felicia’s panicking stare. She sighed, and then her litany rose once more to fill the air. “There, there, now...there, there...”


	2. Mrs. McCarthy

“I should have known.”

Bridgette tore her gaze away from the spot in the darkness where Sid had disappeared a few minutes earlier. “Should have known what?”

“What would happen if he was ever caught in a hailstorm like this one. What kind of memories it might bring to the surface. Death and destruction, falling from the sky.”

Oh. So Lady Felicia, despite not being around when Sid first came to Kembleford, was in the know about what, exactly, had landed him in the countryside as a child. “It would have been a foolish waste of time for you to think about such things.” At least, that was what Bridgette kept trying to tell herself.

“Would it? We get hail often enough.”

“Not like this.” Bridgette picked up one of the thousands of balls of ice that had accumulated within the bounds of the conservatory during the natural assault they had just survived. It was large enough to be mistaken for one of her soup dumplings. “There was nothing normal about this.” 

She had honestly thought that the bad part was over once it had started to rain. That was how things were supposed to go. Oh Lord, if they had been caught out in that deluge... “I will spend a week on my knees in thanksgiving if no one we know was seriously hurt, or worse.”

Lady Felicia let out a _hmph_. “You’re already free of that promise, then.”

“What do you mean?” Her eyes widened as she turned to the woman seated beside her under the table. “Don’t tell me you’re injured?” She had seen the nasty scrape on the back of one of Lady Felicia’s hands, and they both bore cuts from the debris that littered their hiding space, but those things hardly qualified as serious.

“No. But Sid is.”

“...Oh.” Huffing, Bridgette adjusted her position on the cold, hard ground. She understood why Sid had been so insistent that they stay under cover while he went for the car, but it was far from comfortable. 

Then again, maybe the true root of her discomfort wasn’t physical. After all, it was hardly Christian to tongue-lash someone who had just saved your life, even if you didn’t know at the time that was what they were doing. And Sid had, Bridgette was certain, saved their lives with his rough insistence that they take cover. More importantly – even though there was no reason, no precedent for thinking that he would be so emotionally affected by the storm – she should have seen his fit coming. She, not Lady Felicia, should have known.

“...Mrs. McCarthy?” 

How long had she been quietly lost in her guilt? “That trauma happened long before tonight,” she said. “I don’t count it the same.” Maybe she ought to, though. Father Brown believed that a disturbing memory could be more damaging to a person than the actual event at its core. It was one of his many arguments in favor of both official and unofficial confession. Sharing a bad memory, like sharing guilt over a misdeed, sometimes proved to be all that was needed to lift the weight from one’s soul. 

“It feels like it all happened so much longer ago than it did. It also feels like it happened only yesterday.” Lady Felicia sounded distant, reflective. “Were you near it at all, Mrs. McCarthy? The bombings?”

“No, and thank goodness for that.” She had rarely felt a more powerful swell of gratitude than when she had heard the first reports about the Blitz. She’d been in London just a few days before it started, and the thought that she might have been caught up in it had she delayed her departure even a little still made her pulse quicken. “I was here when it began, and here is where I stayed until after it stopped.”

A match scratched to life. It was easily the brightest match Bridgette had ever seen, as the rough edges of the hailstones all around them refracted the firelight dozens of times over. Lady Felicia lit a cigarette, then tossed the match away to sputter and die. “I was there,” she said simply. There was no emotion in her voice now, just the eerie sterility of fact. “I didn’t live in the city full time, of course – it wasn’t the same for me as it was for Sid, huddling in a basement and hearing it every night for weeks on end – but I was there too often to avoid it entirely.”

The level of detail about Sid’s early life that Lady Felicia had clearly been made privy to was dismaying. So far as Bridgette had been aware, she and Father Brown were the only people in Kembleford who knew the exact circumstances that had spurred Sid’s evacuation from London. It wasn't necessarily a surprise that Sid had spoken to the Countess about it – they had been like two peas in a pod since the first time they’d met, almost as instantly and irreversibly twinned as Sid and the Father – but her perturbation lingered. “...I see,” she said stiffly. “Then I suppose it’s no wonder that he has told you something of what he went through.” 

Father Brown would probably say that what she was feeling right now was more of the same envy that sent her to the confessional after every visit to the Montague conservatory. Well, maybe he was right. Bridgette suspected, though, that regretting that the mercy of God had kept her far away from any enemy bombs was just as bad a sin as envy could ever be. Now that she understood why Sid had pulled away from her to lay his head on Lady Felicia’s shoulder, she couldn’t keep either emotion from welling up. A sense of unfairness joined them, forming an unholy trinity that made her eyes burn with unshed tears. 

Hadn’t it been her, not Lady Felicia, who had labored alongside the Father for months to draw the sad, sullen ten-year-old they’d been entrusted with out of his shell? There were moments later on when she almost rued the extent of their success – who could have guessed the amount of trouble their Sidney would find to get himself into once he had remembered how to flash that impish grin? – but it was still _her_ victory, at least in part. _She_ had heated the milk that chased away the bad dreams. _She_ had patched the clothes rent by fences and tree limbs. _She_ had bandaged the wounds from schoolyard fights and, in recent years, more serious escapades. So why should this woman, the woman who had _everything_ , get to share such an important life experience with the nearest thing to a son Bridgette had ever had, when Bridgette herself could not? 

The space under the table lit up again, more softly this time, as Lady Felicia took a long drag. Bridgette was tempted to mock-choke when the smoke was released into their small shared space – and since when did Lady Felicia use tobacco, anyway? It wasn’t exactly ladylike, though she supposed that in a stressful situation such as this one it could be forgiven – but there was a sorrow in the other woman’s exhalation that stopped her. 

“It was terrifying as an adult,” Lady Felicia murmured. “And as an adult with a bit more information about what was going on than most people had, too. I can’t imagine what it must have been like for a child.” She sniffled. “That poor, sweet lamb. I will _never_ be able to forget the way he was shaking. Never.”

Oh, yes, that was something Bridgette was sure she herself would be tortured with for all eternity should something – her old friend envy, perhaps – consign her to Hell. The tremors that had accompanied Sid’s childhood nightmares had been unbearable, but seeing them overwhelm him as a man had nearly torn her in two. 

What had come after the shaking had almost been worse. Sid had lain in the combined cradle of hers and Lady Felicia’s arms for several long minutes, unmoving and unspeaking. Bridgette had thought that he was only ever still and silent when he wanted to be sneaky. Tonight had taught her that a strong enough wave of terror and desperation could induce the same state in him. It was knowledge she would have been much happier living without. 

“This can’t happen again, Mrs. McCarthy,” Lady Felicia continued. “It just can’t. I wanted to tear my hair out when he didn’t stop crying right away. It was as if he _couldn’t_ stop. I felt so useless when what we were doing didn’t seem to be helping at all.” A beat passed. “I think he needs to talk to someone.”

“I know.” Eventually Sid had pulled himself together, lit an unsteady cigarette, and begun insisting that he was all fine, that it was nothing, and that no, he didn’t want to discuss it out here in the middle of a freshly minted wasteland. Bridgette hadn’t believed him – he obviously wasn’t _all_ fine, and hadn’t been for all these years, because if that were the case then the fit would never have happened – and apparently neither had Lady Felicia. “Father Brown is an excellent counselor,” she reminded the younger woman. “And he has always had a special way with Sidney. Once we get out of here, he will be able to help.”

“I know he’ll do everything he can,” Lady Felicia agreed. “But sometimes things like this require a professional. And if that’s what he needs, we’ll get it for him.” Her cigarette flared again. She must, Bridgette decided, have gotten it from Sid at some point before he left them. “I don’t care what it costs.”

Bridgette sighed. Her thoughts a short while ago had been unkind, and untrue, too. Lady Felicia had a lot, but she didn’t have everything. In fact, she lacked the one thing that she had always and deeply wanted above all others. She might have been extremely talented at passing herself off as child _free_ rather than child _less_ , but Bridgette understood the look that sometimes flashed behind the Countess’ eyes. It was the same one that she still caught the occasional glimpse of when she looked in a mirror. There was a sort of sisterhood between the two of them despite all their differences. It was that very sisterhood, Bridgette now realized, that could make them both exceptionally indulgent when it came to Sid. 

“I didn't think that it might still bother him,” she suddenly found herself confessing. “What happened. What he saw. He seemed to have gotten over it long ago. He hasn’t had any problems during normal storms, besides a little jumpiness when the thunder is bad, for ages.” Although, she gulped as she thought backward, Sid did tend to sleep at the presbytery rather than in his caravan whenever the forecast was stormy, and he never looked well-rested the following morning. “...But I should have known.” She shook her head. “When he kept looking up earlier, and saying the air felt funny...oh, I should have known.”

“No.” Lady Felicia found her hand in the darkness and patted it briefly. “You can’t blame yourself, Mrs. McCarthy. You were right when you said that this is _not_ a normal storm. How were you to know? I know I said that I should have seen it coming, too, but really, none of us could have. I don’t even think Sid realized how bad it would get. Why would any of us ever imagine that we’d find ourselves hiding from ice balls you could play golf with in the wreckage of my conservatory?”

“I would hardly call this a fairy tale dream, that much is for certain.” A rare companionable silence unfurled between them. “...Do you think he’s made it yet?” Bridgette asked after a while. 

Lady Felicia took one last, hard pull on her cigarette, then stubbed it out and pitched the end into the remains of her greenhouse. The glowing dot that had marked its movement between her fingers and her lips didn’t vanish, however. It took Bridgette a moment to puzzle out that the other woman had used the dying embers of the first cigarette to light a second. A trick she had learned from Sid, perhaps. It seemed unlikely to be something she’d been taught at whatever girls’ boarding school had polished her into a capital-L Lady.

“No,” came a soft answer. “Usually this would have been more than long enough to walk to the garage, but the ice will slow him down.”

“I wish we hadn’t let him go.” Bridgette shook her head. “Or that we had gone with him. After the state he was in...” 

“You know neither of those was an option. You were here for the argument.”

She had been. It was Sid’s idea to fetch the car. “The garage is only half the distance away that the house is,” he had pointed out. “I can make that trip blindfolded and asleep. You two can stay here, under cover, and I’ll come get you. Even if it...if it starts...to...” He’d closed his eyes and turned his head to the side, struggling. “If the storm comes back,” he managed finally, “we’ll be safer in the car than out in the open.”

Indeed, the storm was still hovering above them. It was late enough to be full dark now, but neither stars nor a moon showed overhead. There had been two or three brief spits of rain, but those smatterings petered out quickly. Bridgette hoped that meant that the clouds had dried themselves out in the first burst of hail. They had earned that much of a reprieve, surely. 

Lady Felicia had had less faith about the weather. “You’ll be too exposed if it starts again,” she argued. “You can’t be out in hail like that without any protection. Besides, there’s no path from here straight to the garage, and everything looks different with the ice. You’ll be navigating blind. And alone.” She had laid her hand on his arm when he appeared unmoved. “Sid, please. It’s too dangerous.”

“It’s the only thing we can do, though, innit?” He’d been flexing his hands, making fists, releasing them, making them again. He paused when Lady Felicia touched him, then resumed the action as he spoke. “And we have to do _something_. We’re not sitting out here all night in the cold. We’ll freeze.” 

It was, in truth, much too cold for the season. Every rebuttal that Sid made created a visible puff in front of him. The temperature had dropped sharply when the hail fell, and although Bridgette trusted that the spring warmth would return once the ice had melted, who knew how long that would take? They could very well freeze before morning. 

“Anyway,” Sid continued, “you know the Father’ll come looking if we’re not back soon. His umbrella won’t be any better protection against this,” he flung one hand out to indicate the piles of ice all around them, “than yours would have been, if we’d already been out there.”

“We will go with you, then,” Bridgette had jumped in. “Lady Felicia is right. Going alone, in the dark, would be reckless.”

“And how far do you think you two’ll get, walking through ankle-deep ice in those shoes?” Sid tapped the knee-high leather boots of his chauffeur’s uniform. “My feet will be fine. Yours wouldn’t be. ’Sides, someone has to stay here in case the Father shows up. We can’t all just up and vanish.”

The thought of Father Brown slipping and sliding all the way out here in search of them was enough to give Bridgette palpitations. Sid making a lonesome trek across the dark estate when the heavens might open up again without warning wasn’t a vision that gave her any more comfort. There ought to have been a third, less dangerous option. Without a lesser evil to choose, she was stymied.

It was Lady Felicia who relented. “You’re right. I hate it, but you’re right. Father Brown will have an absolute fit if he makes it all this way and then can’t find any of us. At least if you and I are here, Mrs. McCarthy, there will be three of us to fret together over Sid’s whereabouts.” 

She’d turned back to Sid then and pinched his chin between her thumb and index finger. Just, Bridgette had thought, like she had often done herself when she needed the rambunctious child version of him to pay close attention to what she was about to say. “Sidney,” Lady Felicia instructed with a careful evenness, “go and get the car.”

“Yeah, that’s...that’s sort of the whole idea, Lady F.”

“Hush.” Sid hushed. “Go and get the car,” Lady Felicia went on, “and then hurry back. Hurry back _safely_.” Strain was coming through in her words now. “Safely, Sid. If I find out that you did something reckless-”

“More reckless, you mean?”

“Yes, fine, _more_ reckless...my point is that you had better be damned careful.” Here, finally, her voice broke. “Do you understand?”

“...Right,” Sid agreed. “Mind the oil pan and don’t ding up the fenders. Got it.” There had been a glint of a devilish smile, like he was hoping to jolly the Countess into a laugh, but it quaked when a single tear ran down her cheek instead. He took her hand from his chin and kissed it. “See you soon, Your Ladyship.” A moment later, Mrs. McCarthy felt the ghost of a peck on her cheek. “Mrs. M.” And then he had gone. 

“We didn’t have any other option,” Lady Felicia repeated dully, pulling Bridgette out of her recollection. “But you’re right. We shouldn’t have let him go. People...people die in hailstorms like this.” She paused, then frowned. “What is that? Do you hear it? It sounds like something’s moving up the hill towards us.” 

There was a sound, yes, and a familiar one at that, though it seemed heavier than usual. Mrs. McCarthy perked up. “The car?”

“No, I’d know the sound of my own car.” They sat and listened, considering, as the noise swelled. Suddenly, Lady Felicia gasped. “Oh, no. No, no, _please_ no...”

The noise was identifiable now as the marching cadence of a dense curtain of rain sweeping towards them. Except, Bridgette quailed as it began to batter the table, it wasn’t rain. It was hail, more hail, slightly smaller than before but _more_. Her hand groped out and found Lady Felicia’s. Their cold fingers curled tightly together as they leaned into each other under the center of the table. “Perhaps it will end before it catches up with him,” Bridgette half-shouted, half-prayed. 

“Yes...or maybe he’s already at the garage, and the car’s just being difficult,” Lady Felicia screamed back. Her nails dug into Bridgette’s flesh, as if she thought a small blood sacrifice might make their hopeless, helpless pleas come true. “Oh, my God, Bridgette,” she moaned, her face a portrait of misery. “What have we done?”


	3. Sid

There was always a loosened bale of straw in one corner of the Montague garage. Sid claimed that he used the stuff to help clean up after he changed one fluid or another in the several vehicles Lady F. kept. He did use it for that, a bit, but it was far handier as a comfy spot for a nap. This wasn't to say that he shirked his duty as Her Ladyship’s chauffeur; he simply chose to take full advantage of any and every perk his job happened to offer up. 

No one who laid eyes on him as he crawled into his nest tonight would dare accuse him of neglecting his obligations. Sid knew that, but the knowledge wasn’t enough to quell his guilt over taking a rest. He needed to get up, get the car started, and get back to the ruins of the conservatory. How he was going to drive through the sheets of fresh hail he’d just dragged himself out of was a mystery that would have stumped even Father Brown, but there was no other choice. This was the plan, his plan, and Lady F. and Mrs. M. were both waiting under a table in the middle of the storm of the century for him to make it work. He had to pull it off, and that's all there was to it.

At the moment, though, he was bloody freezing. The garage wasn’t tied into the house’s central heating, but there was an old oil stove in the corner furthest from his hay bed. It was tempting. No, no, it was stupid. He needed to warm up a little, yeah, because his fingers were sore, icy claws and probably couldn’t have managed a gear shift, but the stove would be too much. It would be impossible to go back out into the cold if the stove was going. 

He’d known the way to the garage from the conservatory, just like he’d said he did. Sid knew the quickest way to the garage from anywhere on the estate. Almost as soon as he’d been hired, he’d started secretly studying every possible foot route, timing them, practicing them. It wasn’t that he took pride in his job, per se, but rather that he wanted to do right by Lady F. She was the best, and if she asked for the car then he was going to get it to her as fast as possible. Faster, at least, than any of her fancy friends could boast of having their vehicles brought up. 

His speed tonight had been cut down by the hail. It blanketed the new spring grass thickly, and Sid had had to mince his way across the lawns. Taking care – and he _had_ tried to take care, because every time he slipped and fell onto the still-sharp ice the memory of that single tear on Lady F.’s cheek assailed him – took forever. He’d wanted to cheer when he could finally make out the shape of the garage, but his teeth had been chattering too hard. Instead he’d reminded himself that both of his ankles were already twisted, so he wasn’t technically being reckless if he sped up just a little bit here at the end.

He hadn’t fallen again until he was a bare twenty feet shy of the garage door. It was a spectacular tumble, though, and for a moment Sid had stayed down on the cold ground, sprawled out and dazed. Only when a tendril of blood ran into his left eye had he realized that this time it wasn’t the hail under his feet that had brought him down, but the stuff that was once again falling from overhead.

Clawing his way across that last little distance was a memory that he sincerely hoped the still-dripping gash at his temple would wipe from existence before all was said and done. He’d tried to keep his head protected as he crawled, and the backs of his hands were stinging from all the wallops they’d absorbed. He was never, he decided, leaving his driving gloves behind in the car again. They weren’t thick, but they might have helped a little, with the cold if nothing else. He probably wouldn’t even be able to stand putting them on now. 

He regretted not waiting an extra week to switch from his winter-weight uniform to the summer version, too, as the thicker wool would have provided more cushion. His knees and elbows burned as if he’d taken coarse-grained sandpaper to them. It felt as if every square inch of his body had caught at least one blow, and he’d taken especially hard knocks in several places. If the aches that were already plaguing him were any indication, he was going to be completely useless for days once he got back to a human temperature. 

When his hands began to warm, Sid explored the worst spots. He gingerly fingered his split temple, one shoulder, a couple of ribs, the small of his back. It was hard to tell if anything in particular was broken when everything hurt, but nothing he poked made him scream or pass out. That being the case, there was no reason for him to stay here and let his innumerable scratches keep reddening the straw. On the contrary, he had two very excellent reasons to get up off his arse and get to work. Groaning curses that would have gotten him swatted away from Mrs. M.’s baked goods for the next month had she been around to hear them, Sid forced himself to his feet. 

If nothing else, he thought as he gathered a few things together and tucked them into the back seat, at least the noise wasn’t the same as it had been before. The hail was rattling off the garage’s metal roof in a rhythmless clatter, but it wouldn't set off another flashback. He’d heard rain, even hail – much, much smaller hail – hit this exact roof so many times before that he usually didn’t even have to consciously focus to keep acting normal in a storm.

The predictable soundscape of Kembleford was one of the main reasons why he’d come back to the country after trying to live in the city again during his late teens. Tonight’s incident in the conservatory was the first time he’d lost control since he'd come home. It had been the specific combination of the whistling of the ice chunks, the explosion-y clatter they’d caused as they burst through Lady Felicia’s pottery, and the trembling that the force of their impact had caused in the earth that had done it, or at least that was what he thought. He’d been yanked backward in time by that chorus of doom, back into the long nights he’d spent in crap East London basements, just a little boy cowering with his arms crossed over his head like his mother had shown him how to do. Too bad she’d forgotten her own advice at the exact moment when Sid had looked up to her for reassurance and a ceiling beam had crashed down on her skull. 

But oh, hell, thinking about earlier, and about earlier still, was pushing him back towards the edge. Now he could almost detect a little whistle coming from outside, and there was a bit of shimmy in the earth, too, wasn’t there? No; no, that was the memory, not reality. Sid closed his eyes and leaned his forehead against the cool hide of the Rolls Royce. “Focus, Carter,” he muttered to himself. That was what Father Brown had always told him, on later nights when the only bombs and beams falling were the ones in his mind. Focus, focus and breathe. “You can’t lose it now. You can’t. They’re waiting.”

Them. That helped. He’d been out of himself when the two women had surrounded him, back there under the worktable, but once the too-immersive film in his head had finally stopped rolling he’d realized what was going on. Part of him had wanted to clear his throat, straighten up, and pretend that he was fine right away. After all, he wasn’t a baby. But that was what the Inspector would probably do if he was the one who’d been caught curled up in terror and sobbing his eyes out. Stiff upper lip, button up Buttercup, and all that. Sod the Inspector. Maybe it wasn’t very masculine, but it had felt nice to be so unreservedly cared for, so openly loved. Scary nice. Much nicer, Sid suspected, than a cheeky sneakthief like him had any right to feel. And frankly, in that moment he’d needed the reminder that the world wasn’t all darkness and pain. 

So he’d let himself be coddled and comforted, just for a minute or two, before he turned the macho back on. If Lady F. and Mrs. M. had noticed his failure to pull away the instant he regained control of himself, neither had mentioned it. For that, Sid mused as he blew out a long, slow breath, as for so many other things, he owed them both. 

“Got the car, Your Ladyship,” he told the empty garage as he pulled himself into the driver’s seat with a grimace. “Now for the hurrying back bit.”

************************************************************************************************************************************************** 

It was a hundred times worse than he’d thought it might be.

Sid had hoped that the road would be easier to traverse than the lawn had been. His walk had been complicated by subtle slopes beneath the grass that let some of the hail slide down to collect in piles. These piles had been nearly impossible to scramble over, and the clearer spots left above them made it hard to fall into a single pattern of walking and stick to it. The service road that linked the garage to the rest of the estate was graded, however, and the chunks that had hit it had stayed put. 

He’d thought this would be better, but the projectiles from the first bout of hail seemed to have cratered themselves into the gravel. This gave them stability, and when the second wave fell it was captured and locked into place by these earlier arrivals. The result was a near-continuous sheet of the roughest ice that Sid had ever seen. 

Rolls Royces weren’t meant to be driven on knobbly skating rinks. Even moving at a crawl, Sid expected to hear a tyre blow out at any second. The only silver lining was that he would actually be able to hear it go, since the storm had died down again as he was pulling out of the garage. There were a few new dents in the bonnet, but he thought he’d be able to get them out himself and save Lady F. the shop bill. She was going to have enough to pay for between the conservatory’s destruction and whatever damage might have been done to the house.

Sid’s brow furrowed. The house. There were huge windows in the south drawing room. A numpty might take odds on their holding up better than the conservatory walls had, but Sid wasn’t that stupid. Father Brown hadn’t been sitting right next to the glass when the rest of them had left him to doze off in the sun, but it was hard to guess what a safe distance might be. Would the first peal of thunder, Sid wondered, have woken him and warned him to move away before he got hurt? 

He almost wished he’d stayed behind with the Father today, like he would have done on most any other occasion. But then what would have become of Lady F. and Mrs. M.? It was probably best that the restlessness he’d felt before the storm had driven him to go with them. Neither of them had seemed to feel any foreboding at all until right before he shoved them under the worktable. They might have waltzed right out into the start of it, or at least failed to take cover fast enough. 

There was the rest of the staff to consider, too. Sid was technically an employee of the Montagues, but the closeness with which he interacted with Lady F. placed him on strange middle ground downstairs. The housemaids, who came and went on a regular basis and thus never had a chance to figure out quite where he stood in the hierarchy, didn’t tend to warm to him beyond friendly flirting. There were no permanent footmen; Lady F. preferred to just hire in male serving staff when she needed them for parties, and in a pinch Sid could do a decent job with trays and decanters. The long-term members of the household – the butler, Warbelow, the housekeeper, Mrs. Lacey, and the cook, Mrs. Young – understood his position well, however, and he had good relationships with all of them. He could only hope that they’d been somewhere safe when the hail had started to fall. 

His brooding would have gone on had he not hit a particularly bad patch of road. The Rolls suddenly juddered sideways and threatened to dive into the ditch. Sid wrestled with the wheel, throwing his full body weight into his effort to stay on the right path. His battered shoulder protested, and for one absurd moment he found himself worrying about his cricket future. “...Cricket,” he scoffed when things were somewhat calmer. He wasn’t going to have to worry about his ability to bowl if he rolled the car over on this ice and got himself killed.

The real excitement began when he reached the first incline. It was gentle and short, but it still took three attempts to top it. Backing the car up to make the second and third tries left Sid sweating despite the cold. Things were bad enough when he could see where he was going. With no light source at the rear of the car – they really ought to have a law about that, thought Sid, though he could hardly believe he was thinking such a thought – his reverse trajectory was invisible. When the back end decided to slide, which it did more or less constantly, all he could do was hold on and wait to see if his luck held.

As soon as he reached the crest, he stopped the car. “Fuck me,” he panted, and buried his face in his numb hands. At this rate he wasn’t sure he could even make it to the conservatory. If the Rolls didn’t give out, his heart would. 

He had to turn onto the main driveway and away from the house, then onto the narrow track that swept around the conservatory’s low rise and up to the rear of the building. His work got no easier as he went. First, he was so busy struggling not to fall off the road that he nearly missed both turns. Next came the agonizingly slow ascent of the hill. The tires spun uselessly again and again, forcing him into more perilous reversals. On some sections he gained mere inches at a time. And every inch he gained, Sid knew, was one he would have to give back soon, but with gravity dictating his acceleration and with two other people’s lives in his hands.

Despite his awareness of what was yet to come, all of his tension evaporated when the headlights finally splashed across the ruins at the top of the ridge. Two figures stood waiting just outside the conservatory’s ragged footprint, pressed together for warmth but not so frozen that they couldn’t wave wildly as he slid to a halt. The tyres had barely come to rest when Sid staggered from the vehicle. “V’you lost your minds?” he exclaimed, half-appalled, half-giddy. “Out here with no cover? You know it’s come back once already!”

Lady F. was in his arms, having outpaced Mrs. M. by a few steps despite the conditions underfoot. “We heard you coming up the hill, and we took the chance. But it doesn’t matter now,” she said as she squeezed him tightly. Too tightly, really, for the state of his ribs, but Sid swallowed his yelp of pain. “Now we’ll all be under cover, together.”

“And back to the house and the Father soon enough,” Mrs. M. declared. Her expression was one of pure drive as she closed the last of the distance between them. For a moment Sid thought that she was going to elbow the other woman out of the way to claim her own embrace. Lady F. released him before violence broke out, but she hovered at his side while he greeted Mrs. M. “And what,” that redoubtable matron demanded after her grip had left Sid short of breath for the second time in the space of a minute, “have you done to the side of your head?”

“I was about to ask the same question,” said Lady F.

Sid opened his mouth to reply, but Mrs. M. had hold of his chin and was turning his face away as she tried to examine him. “I need more light,” she complained. “I can see blood there, but I can’t make out anything else.”

“We could move up, more into the beam of the headlamps,” Lady F. suggested. 

“It’s fine,” Sid insisted. “It’s just a nick.” If the mark left by the bit of hail that had floored him looked half as bad as it felt, both Lady F. and Mrs. M. would probably try and insist on some kind of first aid. They didn’t have time for that.

“Sidney,” said Mrs. M., “you are _bleeding_.”

“Well, so are you, a little,” he pointed out. “So’s Lady F. Red’s the color of the evening.” 

Whoops; wrong answer. Maybe it was because he’d been on the receiving end of her domineering nature for a good chunk of his life. Maybe it was just because the temperature suddenly seemed to drop another ten degrees. Whatever the reason, Sid could tell that Mrs. M.’s fight was rising even without being able to see her properly. 

“C’mon,” he tried, switching to pleading. “Don’t try and walk on this stuff anymore than you have to. It’s dark, it’s dangerous, and you’ve already come through enough of it.” Remembering how the ice and glass inside the conservatory had nicked up his heavy footwear, he’d thrown a pair of short, wide planks from the garage into the back seat. His idea had been to put them down on top of the debris to make a safer path from the worktable to the car. So much for that. “Anyway, I drove up here all right, didn’t I? Just wait until we get to the house. Then you can look at me all you want.”

The two women exchanged a glance. “...Well,” Mrs. M. said imperiously, “so long as you know that you _will_ be held to your promise.”

Anything, anything to not be standing out here if the hail came again. Sid grinned – how had he missed them both so much in such a short period of time? – and offered them each an arm. “I’ll take that deal, Mrs. M. Now let's get off this hill.”


	4. Father Brown

A knock drew Father Brown’s attention. He finished the sentence he’d been whispering into his folded hands, then turned. “Mrs. Lacey,” he greeted when he saw Lady Felicia’s housekeeper standing in the doorway. “Is everything all right?”

It felt silly, almost disdainful, to ask that question in their current situation. The manor that Mrs. Lacey was entrusted with the care of had been battered by two monumental hailstorms. Her employer, another long-term member of the staff, and a regular visitor to the house were all missing, presumably together but still not guaranteed to be safe. There were no lights, no telephone, no promise of when escape might be possible. Of course everything wasn’t all right.

But Mrs. Lacey just gave him a kind, if worry-pinched, smile. “I thought I might join you, if you don’t mind an Anglican butting in?” 

“No ‘butting in’ to worry about,” the Father assured her. “All prayers go to the same ear. Please...” He shuffled over, making space at the far end of the sofa he’d been praying in front of in case Mrs. Lacey wanted to support her arms while she kneeled. “There’s more than enough room.”

“Thank you.”

Father Brown had settled down to serious, life-or-death-level prayer more times than he could count. Even at his most upset, his faith always helped him to focus and to hold onto hope. Tonight, though, he was struggling. The three people he loved most in the world were trapped in a potentially lethal situation, and there was nothing, absolutely nothing besides prayer, that he could offer up as help. A murderer, he reflected darkly, could be outsmarted or reasoned with. Neither tactic would work with this storm, nor with God. 

The windows of the south drawing room had been set to shivering by the first crack of thunder. Snapped out of his doze, Father Brown had frowned at the atmosphere outside. The storm had arrived quickly, and he didn’t remember hearing or seeing any warning about impending bad weather. There was something odd, too, in the way the clouds had piled up on themselves. Kembleford got its fair share of hard rains, but this didn’t feel like anything the Father had experienced before.

The others would have come back into the drawing room if they’d already returned from the conservatory. That was how it always went when he - and usually Sid, too – was left to sleep off tea while the ladies went flower-viewing. Nevertheless, Father Brown left his seat and made his way down into the service areas of Montague House. Perhaps today was a little different for more than just its weather, and they’d chosen not to disturb him when they got back. It didn’t hurt to ask.

“Ah, Mr. Warbelow,” he said when he caught sight of the butler. “Tell me, has-”

He broke off as the lights failed. The downstairs hall lacked windows, and it was left dark as pitch save for faint gray squares where a few doors stood open. A feminine squeal sounded from beyond one of those squares, then dissolved into a nervous giggle. “...I’ll get a candle, then, Mr. Warbelow?” she called out when she’d recovered. “I can see a bit in here still.”

“Yes, Hannah, thank you,” the butler replied. “You can bring an extra for the Father. And no,” he added, his voice turning back towards Father Brown, “I’m afraid that her Ladyship has not returned.”

“What about Sid?” Sid might well have grown bored at the conservatory and come back early. If he was hanging around the house somewhere, they could make a dash for the garage and then take the car up to save the ladies from what looked likely to be a very wet walk. 

“No. To my knowledge he and Mrs. McCarthy are still accompanying Lady Felicia. Thank you, Hannah,” Mr. Warbelow added as the housemaid approached bearing three long tapers. Only her own was lit, but it took no time at all to flare the others into life. “Now, go into the kitchen and wait there with Mrs. Young. I’ll fetch my torch from my office and bring Carol and Mrs. Lacey down from the library. I believe they were planning to dust the shelves in there this afternoon.”

“Right you are, sir.” Hannah began to turn away, then paused. She cocked her head to one side, the corners of her lips arching downward in bemusement. “Did you hear that?”

“Hear what?” asked Mr. Warbelow.

“That. There it was again. That little _tink_.” She studied them both. “You didn’t hear it?”

Father Brown hadn’t heard it as quickly as Hannah, but soon the sound she’d described was reaching his ears from all directions. It happened a dozen, two dozen, a hundred times, each clink reminiscent of an ice cube being dropped into a tumbler. A few of the cubes fell in too eagerly and cracked. “Is that...hail?” he ventured.

“Yes, Father,” said Mr. Warbelow, his expression tight. “I believe that it is.”

It soon became all too obvious that Father Brown’s guess had been correct. The squat basement windows of the service floor held firm, but they were soon covered by the ice building up outside. The mission to rescue the housekeeper and the other maid from upstairs revealed that all the plate glass on the ground and first floors was ruined. Most of it had been blown out completely, and the rest bore long cracks and deep chips that the world’s most experienced glazier would have deemed irreparable. 

“I’m not certain, Father Brown,” Mr. Warbelow shared in a low voice as they led Carol and Mrs. Lacey downstairs, “whether they would have been safer inside or outside. At the conservatory, I mean.”

Father Brown had been pawing at the same question himself. The hail that had fallen was easily the largest he’d ever seen, and there was a great deal of it. It had come down fast, too, as they learned when they all assembled in the kitchen. “It was throwing gravel from the delivery drive against the windows,” said Mrs. Young, the cook. “It dug right into the ground, like someone was planting it there.” 

Mrs. Lacey’s eyes touched each face in turn, searching. “...Her Ladyship?” she finally asked Mr. Warbelow. 

“No. Nor Si-” Mr. Warbelow’s gaze flickered to the listening housemaids. “...Nor Mr. Carter.”

“Oh. Oh, dear.” Mrs. Lacey sank into a chair at the servant’s table. “The telephone’s out,” she reported, shaking her head. “I checked the library extension after the power failed.”

“So there isn’t even a way for us to call for help if they’re hurt?” queried Hannah thoughtlessly.

“Hannah!” Carol hissed. 

“Well, they were in the conservatory, weren’t they? It’s all glass.” Hannah’s face fell as she took in the chastising stares of the others. “It’s not like I want anyone hurt. But we’re all thinking it, aren’t we?”

Father Brown had to speak, had to focus on something other than the gory visions that kept flickering past his mind’s eye. “You’re right, Hannah,” he said. “It’s very difficult not to think the worst in situations like these. But we can hope that our greatest fears are mistaken, and we can see if there are things we might be able to do to help improve the final outcome. In fact, if Mr. Warbelow will accompany me to the top of the stairs here, we may be able to come up with some sort of a plan right now.”

They climbed up a kinked set of steps towards the kitchen service entrance. “Father,” the butler said as he pulled open the door to the outside, “you may not be aware of this, but the conservatory can’t be seen from here.”

“I know,” Father Brown replied. “I came up to look at the ground, not the horizon.”

Mr. Warbelow had brought his torch, and Father Brown saw what he needed to see almost immediately. “...It’s worse than I thought.”

“You thought we might be able to walk up?” asked Mr. Warbelow.

“Yes, I had hoped that was a possibility.” It wasn’t wholly _im_ possible, he supposed, but it would be difficult going, and a fall onto the frozen spikes that littered the ground could quickly turn a would-be rescuer into a for-certain victim. 

“The storm seems to be lingering above us,” Mr. Warbelow pointed out. “It could start again at any time. But if you’re going to try for it, Father, I’d like to join you.”

He was sorely tempted to do exactly that despite the obvious danger. “...Thank you, Mr. Warbelow,” answered Father Brown slowly. “But I think for the time being we should stay where we are. We won’t help them any by getting ourselves injured.” They wouldn’t be helping by just sitting on their hands, either. But this was a challenging situation, and he needed time to think through all its angles. He could only pray that it was time the missing trio could afford for him to take. 

He would have foregone dinner, but he sensed that any such indication of the true depth of his worry might have a negative impact on the rest of the group. The stew Mrs. Young had prepared was excellent, but he had to force it down. Every spoonful of hot broth reminded him of the chill air that Sid, Mrs. McCarthy, and Lady Felicia were shivering in. The light of the candles that they’d put up throughout the kitchen – it was best, all had agreed, to save Mr. Warbelow’s torch for an emergency or a possible rescue attempt – made a stark contrast with the darkness in the forecourt. And the dampening effect that the house above had on the roar of the second round of hail when it came at the end of the mostly silent meal left it all too easy to imagine how overwhelming the racket must be for anyone stuck outside.

“...Do you think it’s doing this all the way over to Rewbury?” Carol asked nervously as she played with her spoon. “My family’s over that direction,” she added for Father Brown’s benefit.

“Sometimes fierce weather events are very localized,” he replied. “They may not even know that we’re having a storm.” If only everyone’s families were equally distant from this mayhem. Father Brown sent Carol an encouraging smile – he wasn’t sure, in retrospect, how he'd managed it – then folded his napkin and stood up. “Mr. Warbelow, is there a room I can use for a bit of quiet reflection?”

“Of course, Father Brown. Take my office.”

Hannah’s eyes brightened. “Are you coming up with a plan to go get them?” 

“I certainly hope to, Hannah.” Because if he didn’t do something soon, he might start to despair. “...I certainly hope to.”

He was still alone in the butler’s office when the hail stopped again. “Thank you, Lord,” he’d murmured when the tempest faded. The ground was likely even more impassable than it had been before, but at least now they might make a try for the conservatory without being bludgeoned to death. It was progress.

Unfortunately, that was where all progress on Father Brown’s plan had ceased. He turned the issues at hand – terrible footing, bitter cold, a high likelihood of injury for any and everyone involved, and never mind the still-lingering storm itself – over and over again. Between each consideration, he prayed. Prayer came hard tonight, when all he wanted was to find his answers and put them into motion, but he persevered. Even if his recitations weren’t doing his problem-solving any good, maybe they would do something for the others.

He was on his fifth round of prayers after Mrs. Lacey’s arrival when the too-familiar drumbeat started up once more. “Oh,” the housekeeper soughed beside him. She slipped sideways, dropping from her knees until she sat fully on the floor. “Oh, Father Brown...I want so very much to believe, to have faith that they’re all right...but in this...how? I put on a strong face out in the kitchen, for the girls, but it’s like Hannah said. It would be a miracle for anyone trapped out in this storm without cover to survive it. Why should they be the survivors, if there are any to be had at all?”

“...Mrs. Lacey,” Father Brown confided, “I don’t mind telling you that I’m having my own difficulties with that question tonight. I think the best answer we have is to trust in the traits that God has granted to everyone who found themselves caught out this evening. 

“He’s given our missing people good tools,” he insisted. “Intelligence; adaptability; determination; love. The last one is the most important, I believe. Sometimes love can stretch any other ability well beyond its usual limits. That is where I’m pinning my hope.”

As he spoke, Father Brown realized that he was convincing himself along the way. There was no guarantee, of course, because there was never a guarantee, but if any three people in the world could band together and get themselves and each other through this ordeal then those three people were Felicia Montague, Sid Carter, and Bridgette McCarthy. 

Mrs. Lacey had wet trails on her cheeks, but she rallied a smile. “...Thank you, Father. I...yes. You’re right, of course. Thank you.” She sniffled softly, then straightened her shoulders and pushed herself back up onto her knees. “...Shall we pray?”

“Yes,” Father Brown nodded. “Let us pray.” Fervently.

************************************************************************************************************************************************** 

When a monumental crash shook the house a short while later, both Father Brown and Mrs. Lacey leapt to their feet. There was no light in hallway, since the others were still massed in the kitchen and there was no point in illuminating empty space, so their speed was limited to the fastest walk that the shielded flames on their tapers could take. Just as they emerged into the comparable glare of Mrs. Young’s domain, a cry rang out. “Your Ladyship!”

There, thought Father Brown as he spied the figure at the bottom of the kitchen stairs, was one-third of the equation, at least. How she had gotten home with the hail pounding down as hard as ever was a mystery, the solution to which he was very much looking forward to hearing. Not now, though, not when he could spy a half-dozen cuts, some dried, some still seeping, from clear across the room. Lady Felicia was cradling one wrist carefully, too, and it looked as if she might have a black eye by morning. But her lips curved upward as her worried staff rushed to meet her, and despite her obvious exhaustion she offered up a morsel of information. “I have,” she announced in a tone that brooked no opposition, “the absolute best chauffeur in the entire world. Even if he did crash the car into the house at the end.”

Ah. That explained the sound that had momentarily drowned out the storm.

“I have no idea how we are still alive,” Ms. McCarthy added as she stepped off the last of the risers and into the candlelight. A spark of pride glittered in her eyes as she went on. “He can’t possibly have been able to see where he was going with all the hail coming through the windscreen.” From a distance Father Brown judged her injuries to be equivalent to Lady Felicia’s, although Mrs. McCarthy was sporting a limp in place of a sore wrist. “And that hill! I have never been on such a wild ride in all my life, and let me tell you, I hope I never have to be again.” She shivered, then drew the oil-stained blanket she’d come in wearing closer around her shoulders. “This chill is something else I can do without a repeat of, as well.”

“You both must be frozen to the bone,” said Mrs. Lacey. She had left Father Brown’s side and was rapidly taking control of the situation. “Please, Your Ladyship, Mrs. McCarthy, come through to Mr. Warbelow’s office. There’s plenty of space there, and we can light the fireplace for you. The central heat’s still working, but you’ll want the extra warmth, I’m sure. Mrs. Young,” Mrs. Lacey directed the cook as she hustled her charges towards the hallway, “tea to start with, please, and plenty of hot water besides. Carol, go to the linen room and bring me a stack of sheets. Then fetch my shears. We’ll need to make bandages; I’ll show you how. Hannah, the fire.”

“Yes, Mrs. Lacey,” came a pair of acknowledgements and bobs before the housemaids scurried past Father Brown to attend to their assignments. He stepped aside for them, then reached out to greet Lady Felicia as she approached.

“Father.” She embraced him with one arm and a tired smile. 

“My dear Lady Felicia. I can’t tell you how glad I am that you’re home.”

“Me, either,” she joked weakly. Pulling back, she squeezed his hand – her fingers were so frigid that Father Brown wondered at her ability to bend them at all – and then glanced towards the darkened staircase. Sid’s outline had appeared there during Mrs. Lacey’s martial moment, but he was hesitating at the edge of the kitchen’s glow. “Father...I need to talk to you later,” Lady Felicia whispered. “It’s important.”

A tendril of concern began to wind through the relief that had flooded his veins only seconds before. “Of course. Once you’ve had a chance to rest.”

“No,” Mrs. McCarthy put in. “As soon as we are fit to be seen, and no longer. And speaking of being seen...” She turned back to the stairs, wavering on her bad leg. Lady Felicia, Father Brown, and Mrs. Lacey all reached out to stabilise her, but the older woman didn’t seem to notice her own stumble. “Sidney,” she called across the length of the kitchen, “what exactly do you think you are doing, dawdling in the shadows?”

“Just letting my eyes adjust, Mrs. M.,” he called back. “Right behind you.”

“Well, you had just better be. I’ve not forgotten our deal, even if you have.” She exchanged a deeply disquieted look with Lady Felicia, then dropped her voice again. “I don’t think we ought to-”

“I agree,” Lady Felicia nodded.

“Wait,” said Father Brown. It was obvious that they’d both been about to make for the staircase, no doubt to drag Sid down out of the dusk. Father Brown couldn’t blame them for the urge – he'd heard the asthenia in Sid’s tone, and he didn’t like it any more than the two women seemed to – but he stopped them anyway. “You won’t help him by neglecting yourselves. You should go with Mrs. Lacey.”

“But Father Brown-” began Mrs. McCarthy.

“Mrs. McCarthy,” he rejoined, “I really must insist.” Sid had to know that he was causing them all stress by refusing to step into the light. If he was persisting despite that, he had a good reason. “Please, go.”

Neither of them had to ask if he would take care of Sid. It was a given. Still, Lady Felicia clasped his hand once more. “You’ll come get us as soon as you’re done.” It wasn’t a question.

“Of course I will, Lady Felicia. Mrs. McCarthy,” he hugged her as she passed reluctantly by, and used the action to chivvy her along down the corridor. “Get some rest.”

Father Brown held his position at the end of the hallway until the door to Mr. Warbelow’s office closed. Then he strode across the kitchen, the butler fast on his heels. “Sid?” 

“...C’n I fall down now?”

The Father sucked in a short breath. “Not on a staircase, no, you may not. Mr. Warbelow, will you help me?”

They managed to get him seated at the table even though he objected to any use of his right arm in the effort. Mrs. Young caught a glimpse of the scene, gasped, and turned quickly back to her work with a stricken expression. Father Brown had to fight to keep the same look off his own face once he stepped back and took in the full picture. “...Oh, Sid,” he sighed. “You and your knack for getting yourself into terrible messes.” 

From the elbow down, Sid’s sleeves were shredded. The flesh below didn’t look to be in much better shape. What skin was left on his hands was already purpling into bruise underneath all the drying blood, and several of his fingers were a different shape than Father Brown remembered them being at tea. A deep gash marked the hairline at his left temple. Other impacts had split his lip in two places, sliced open the bridge of his nose, and left him with angry scrapes on his chin and cheek that matched the ones glistening at his knees. “Had to hide, didn’t I?” Sid muttered. “They’d’ve lost their minds, they’d seen.”

“You’re not wrong.” The ladies would still be deeply upset when they eventually saw him, Father Brown knew, but Sid had been right to push that moment of shock off until later. 

“Tell me,” he asked, “how much more am I going to find when I get you to bed?” This was an important question not because the answer would change how they proceeded – the phones were still down, and the force with which the car had hit the house led Father Brown to assume that it wouldn’t be going anywhere without major repairs – but because he wasn’t sure if he himself could bear any additional unpleasant surprises tonight. The more he knew in advance, the better.

“Um...” His eyes were trying to close. Mr. Warbelow quickly slipped his hand between the wall and the back of Sid’s head before they could thud together. “Ta,” Sid whispered when he felt the butler’s palm. 

“Sidney.” That would get his attention. It always did, which was why the Father didn’t abuse its power. Mrs. McCarthy could Sidney this and Sidney that all day long and get more or less the same response every time. The sound of Father Brown saying his full Christian name, though, would likely suffice to raise Sid from the dead. 

Sure enough, his head snapped back up. “Ow,” he protested. “J’you do that for? Makes me jump every time.”

“Sid, I need you to answer me. How much more is there?”

“It’s...I mean, it’s not gonna kill me, probably?”

“...’Probably?’” How reassuring.

“Probably, yeah. ‘M not a doctor. I just...know how it feels. Bleedin’ hurts.” A grin tried to form on his lips, but it ended in a groan. “Funny, though.” He lifted his hands just enough to draw attention to them. “Bleeding...hurts.”

It was insane, but Father Brown had to bite back a chuckle anyway. “Don’t share that one with Mrs. McCarthy,” he advised.

“You kidding, Father?” His eyelids moved south again. “I didn’t get hit _that_ hard...”

“Right.” Father Brown bent and took Sid’s left arm over his shoulders. Standing, he used his free hand to catch the younger man by the waist and keep him steady. “Mr. Warbelow, is Sid’s room still where it used to be?” 

“Yes, Father. Last door on the right. Although I could have a closer one made up, if that would be easier.”

The Father glanced down at the face lolling semi-consciously against his shoulder. “No.” Sid might prefer his caravan to the quarters that Lady Felicia kept for him, but he slept at Montague House often enough that the space would be a familiar sight when he woke up. Besides, every step they took to get there would be another opportunity for Father Brown to give thanks for the weight in his arms. By that measure, Sid’s room wasn’t nearly far enough away. “We’ll make it just fine, thank you.”


	5. Epilogue: Lady Felicia

_**Two weeks later** _

Felicia paused on the threshold of the presbytery’s kitchen and crossed her arms. “Are you supposed to be out of bed,” she asked the man sitting at the table, “or do I have to sic Mrs. McCarthy on you?”

“Wouldn’t be much left for her to get her teeth into after you were done,” Sid smirked. “Now would there?”

“No,” Felicia conceded. “There probably wouldn’t be.” She moved into the room and took a seat beside him. From there she could tell that Mrs. McCarthy knew exactly where Sid was. The expert arrangement of the pillows separating the chair from the welts that the hailstorm had raised on his back said everything. “Still sore?”

“Yeah. It’s better, though. It's mostly the ribs that hurt now.” Two of those, they’d learned when the ice had finally melted down enough to let a doctor reach Montague House, had been fractured, along with half of Sid’s fingers and a couple of bones deeper in his right hand. He lifted that appendage and its bulky cast a couple of inches off the table. “And this. This is the worst bit.” 

The breaks in his hands and the utter flaying of the skin that covered them were the price Sid had paid for continuing to drive even after the hail had broken through the windscreen and started smacking into the steering wheel and onto the front seat. Felicia hated that he hadn’t pulled over and come into the back of the car with her and Mrs. McCarthy to wait the third bout of the storm out. The conditions had been so severe, however, that even attempting to stop would likely have snatched control of the Rolls away from Sid completely. At least, that was the reason he’d given when she’d realized what he’d gone through for them and had burst into helpless, grateful, angry tears. 

“It will heal.” Clean breaks, easily set, had been one of the few things the doctor had said that hadn’t made Felicia cry harder when she heard them. “Your face looks better.” His split lip retained a bit of puffiness, and there were still scabs at his temple and the bridge of his nose, but the scrapes had receded into mere red patches. She brushed her fingers over one of them and was pleased when he didn’t flinch at the pressure. “Much better.” 

“So does yours.” He squinted at her closely. “Can’t even see where the make-up ends.”

“Thank you.” Her black eye and sprained wrist, like Mrs. McCarthy’s deep thigh contusion and most of the damage to Sid’s face, had come from their jarring final slide into the corner of Montague House. That, too, Sid had since told Felicia apologetically, had been necessary, as it was the only way he could think of at the time to make sure they would come to a halt right next to the kitchen door. “I was getting a little tired of putting on oversized sunglasses every time I left the house. We’re not quite close enough to summer yet for that to look fashionable.”

“Mm...summer.” A frown appeared as Sid carefully rolled his right shoulder. “Maybe...”

Felicia smiled, all commiseration. “I think you’d better sit this year out, Sid.”

“I mean, the cast might be off in time,” he insisted. “I might even bowl better after. Be more unpredictable. Everyone’ll have to re-learn my style.”

“You will bowl _much_ better if you actually let yourself heal before you go trying to win glory for Kembleford,” Mrs. McCarthy lectured as she bustled into the room and began pulling together Sid’s afternoon pills. “There are plenty of others who can play cricket well enough to prevent our complete mortification in your absence.”

“Well, it’s just that you’re setting such a fine example of taking a rest, Mrs. M.,” Sid prodded.

“...You have to eat something with these, Sidney, but that something doesn’t have to be my award-winning strawberry scones.”

Wincing – though Felicia wasn’t sure whether the look came from physical pain or from the prospect of being denied his favorite food – Sid raised both of his plaster-swaddled hands in a gesture of surrender. “Alright, fine. Lady F. can take my place on the team. She’ll be fine by then, and we know she can bring in a win.” 

A plate bearing a pair of neatly trisected scones and several capsules was set down in front of him almost immediately after this concession had been made. Sid pinched a piece of scone between his left thumb and his bandaged but unbroken index finger and tucked it into his mouth. “...Should still sit down once in a while, though,” he mumbled through crumbs.

“Sidney!”

“He’s not wrong, Mrs. McCarthy,” Felicia chimed in. “The doctor did say you should try and rest your leg as much as possible until that terrible bruise is gone.” 

“Rest? And then who would do the parish business, and look after the Father, and keep this other one fed and bandaged and inside where he belongs? Besides,” she waved their concerns away, “the bruising is much better now. I am perfectly fine.”

Sid had wolfed everything Mrs. McCarthy had placed in front of him. Now he collected the last remnants of scone from his plate. As soon as he’d swallowed them, he said in a careful, measured tone, “’S that why you’ve been limping every night when you come in my room before you leave?”

Felicia gasped. “Mrs. McCarthy!”

A hint of embarrassed color rose into the older woman’s cheeks. “I put it up when I get home,” she defended herself.

“I’ll send one of the housemaids down to help you for the next few weeks,” Felicia said. It would have to be Carol; Hannah was a fine and lively girl, but she’d drive Mrs. McCarthy up the wall in close quarters. “Or I could always take Sid back to the house for a while.” She’d wanted to keep him there to start with, but Mrs. McCarthy had nearly gone apoplectic at the suggestion. “Many hands make light work, you know.” 

“Maybe so, but too many spoons in the pot will spoil the soup,” retorted Mrs. McCarthy. “It is much better that he stays here, where it’s quiet.”

“She’ll take the loan of the housemaid, though,” Sid put in. “Better make it Carol, I think.”

Felicia smiled. “I was thinking the same thing.”

Mrs. McCarthy was huffing with indignation. As soon as Sid had returned Felicia’s smile, he caught the older woman’s gaze and held it. “I’ll go with her if you don’t. I wasn’t out picking daisies in a daydream the whole time the doctor was there; I heard what he told you. You need to rest just as much as we do. That’s why I asked the Father to help me come down this morning,” he went on before Mrs. McCarthy could interject. “Didn’t want you doing those stairs all day long, did I?”

Tears were shining in the parish secretary’s eyes. “Sidney...”

The door opened then, revealing Father Brown. He had a small brown paper bag in his grasp, which he set on the kitchen counter as he stepped inside. “I seem to have walked in on a tense moment,” he said, glancing around the table. “Still, Lady Felicia, I’m glad I didn’t miss your visit today. I know I’ve missed many over these last two weeks.”

Felicia had had Warbelow drive her into Kembleford in her sportscar at least once a day since the others had left Montague House, but Father Brown had been so busy that she’d barely seen him. While she’d never been a stranger at the presbytery, the recent frequency of her visits was unprecedented. And despite the lack of flowers to distract them, she realized, the debate over the housemaid was the first disagreement she and Mrs. McCarthy had really had with one another over all those hours. 

“He agrees you should be resting more, Mrs. M.” Sid said quickly. “Don’t you, Father?”

Understanding dawned on the Father’s face. “...I do, although I was saving that topic for a little later in the afternoon.”

“Actually,” Felicia inserted, “we have it all settled. Carol is going to come by for the next few weeks, starting tomorrow, to help Mrs. McCarthy however she can.”

“Is she?” A knowing glint shone in Father Brown’s eyes. “How kind of you to lend her, Lady Felicia.”

“My pleasure.” She only wished she’d thought of it sooner.

Everyone turned to Mrs. McCarthy. “Well...I...” She blustered for a moment, looking first to Father Brown, then to Sid. When the latter raised his eyebrows at her, she gave in. “Thank you,” she sighed. “Carol does seem to be a competent girl. I should be able to sit down for a few extra minutes a day, at least.”

“You can start right now,” said Father Brown. He moved around Sid and Felicia, touching each of them appreciatively on the shoulder as he went, and pulled out the chair nearest to Mrs. McCarthy. 

“I was about to start dinner-”

“I’ll make dinner.” 

“You're going to stuff and roast a chicken, are you?”

“No. But I bought sausages, and I’m sure I can manage a fry-up.”

“He definitely can,” Sid confided to Felicia. “Best fry-ups I’ve ever tasted. ‘Cept yours, of course, Mrs. M.,” he added in haste as she finally took the seat on his other side. “Wouldn’t want to be cut off from those. Just saying.”

Mrs. McCarthy observed Sid sternly for the space of a long breath. Then she let a fond smile unfurl, shook her head, and patted his left hand so gently that Felicia wasn’t sure she actually came into contact with the bandages. “I think you can rest easy on that count, at least for the time being.

“...Now,” she went on, “so long as we are all in the same room, we can start thinking about the church fair. Since the last one had to be canceled, I thought we might try to make this next one a bit bigger than usual. Fortunately, that storm didn’t hand us much in the way of unexpected bills...” This was true; while Kembleford had experienced some minor flooding, the hail had been concentrated mostly over the Montague estate and broad stretches of field and forest beyond, much to Felicia’s chagrin. “...But we could do with making up ground on the income side. Oh, Father, hand me that pad and pencil, would you, please? I’ll note down anything good we come up with.”

Father Brown complied, his mouth quirking with restrained mirth. Sid and Felicia exchanged an amused glance. “She never stops, you know,” Sid grinned, his teasing heavily underlined with admiration.

“I’ve noticed,” Felicia chuckled.

“At least she’s sitting down,” put in Father Brown.

Mrs. McCarthy looked up from titling a page and blinked round at them all. “What are you all going on about?”

She got her response in triplicate. “Nothing!”

**************************************************************************************************************************************************

Felicia sent Warbelow back to the house until later in the evening, then stayed for the fry-up and the genial talk that followed it. When Sid began visibly struggling to keep his eyes open, Father Brown helped him hobble back up the stairs to bed. Once they were out of earshot, Mrs. McCarthy leaned forward over the table. “Have you found someone yet?”

Leaning in as well, Felicia lowered her voice to match the other woman’s. It was silly, really, because they had to tell Sid about it sooner or later, but she didn’t want the news to be something he simply overheard. “Yes. There’s quite a good man in Cheltenham. Very discreet.” Not that discretion should have been necessary, in her opinion; anyone who would take issue with Sid’s childhood psychological trauma simply wasn’t worth knowing. “I’ve made him an appointment for next Thursday. I’ll pick him up at ten. Don’t worry, Warbelow’s driving, not me.” 

“You _are_ going with, though, aren’t you?”

“Yes.” She didn’t really believe that Sid would try and skip the appointment, since he could barely walk ten feet unassisted, but the possibility refused to fully leave her mind. Besides, she wanted to be available on the ride home in case he needed an ear.

Mrs. McCarthy was frowning down at the multiple pages of notes she’d taken over the past several hours, but Felicia knew that she wasn’t thinking about the church fair. “...You could come too, if you wanted,” she offered. “There’s room.”

The older woman blew out a long breath. “...No.”

“No?” That was a surprise. 

“No.” Mrs. McCarthy sighed again. “I have given this a great deal of thought over the past two weeks, Lady Felicia. As much as I want to go, I am not the person he might need to be there. You are. The Father would probably do near as well, but he was never actually in the Blitz, either. You were. You and Sidney share that experience. I...I do not.

“I will tell you,” she continued, her voice shaking, “that I did not have many terribly gracious thoughts about you when he pulled away from me in the middle of his fit. In fact, I might have hated you, just for a moment.” Mrs. McCarthy freed a handkerchief from her pocket and dabbed at her face as she spoke. “It was wrong of me, but it was how I felt. Envy has always been my weakness, and if there is anything on this earth that I am truly jealous over...it’s...”

“Not the conservatory,” Felicia filled in.

“No, though it was a shame to see that go. But to see _him_ go on again like he did that night...never again. I would rather go all the way to Rome and back on my knees, atoning for my feelings at every inch, than risk them interfering with something that might help him. With something...anything...that might ensure that he never breaks down like that again.”

If she said anything further, it was lost in tears. Felicia, her own cheeks damp, reached across the table with both hands. “It’s all right,” she whispered when they had been taken. “Bridgette...I understand.” She might not have ever hated the woman sitting across from her, but she’d certainly had her own moments of jealousy. “You know,” she revealed, beginning to laugh in spite of everything, “I can’t even manage a simple fry-up, let alone an award-winning strawberry scone. All of my cooking attempts have to be heavily supervised by Mrs. Young. He’d starve in my house if it wasn't for her.”

Mrs. McCarthy straightened up at that. “He would do no such thing,” she said, continuing to sniffle. “Do you think I let him leave from under this roof without at least being able to cook a decent meal for himself?” Her words came out as a chastisement, but a tiny smile had appeared on her lips. “Anyway, you wouldn‘t let him starve whether you had a cook or not. I know that much.” A beat passed. “...I could teach you a few things. If you wanted to learn.”

“Thank you,” said Felicia, “but I’m content to leave the culinary artistry to you. My point was that you give him plenty of things that I never could.” The sort of determination that was required to continue driving through an endless hailstorm with two broken hands leapt to mind. Felicia did not believe that she could ever have done that. She was equally convinced that Mrs. McCarthy could, and that she’d then try to step back into her kitchen or review the parish ledger – or both – the very next day.

“Maybe so.” Mrs. McCarthy squeezed Felicia’s hands, then withdrew her own. “Thank you for saying it, anyway.” She dabbed her eyes once more and tucked her handkerchief away. “Will you tell him tonight? About the appointment?”

“Do you think he’s still awake? They went upstairs at least fifteen minutes ago.”

Mrs. McCarthy nodded. “Sid has never been one of those who could nod off at the table or on the sofa and then go straight to bed. If he moves, he has to wind back down afterward.”

“I’ll go see him, then.” Even if he was already asleep, Felicia knew looking in on him would make her feel better. It was one of the dozen reasons why she’d wanted to keep him at Montague House. “Will you call the house for me, and ask for Warbelow to come down with the car?”

“Of course. I need to stand up in any case; I cannot remember the last time I sat for so long without doing anything constructive. The Father even did the dishes, bless him...”

Felicia was still biting back a smile at that when she encountered Father Brown on the stairs. “Did you and Mrs. McCarthy have a nice chat?” he queried with a smile of his own.

She paused. “...Did you hear us?”

“No. Not the particulars, at least. But you seemed to need a little space to yourselves, so I thought it best to wait here.” He glanced over his shoulder. “He was awake a few minutes ago, and he probably still is. He doesn’t-”

“Go straight to sleep after he’s been moved,” Lady Felicia finished with him. “She told me.”

Father Brown nodded. “Good. I’m glad to hear it.” He hesitated, considering, then spoke again. “...I believe I did overhear that you’ve made him an appointment?”

“Yes. Mrs. McCarthy suggested that I tell him tonight.”

“That’s more good news, then.” He squeezed her elbow gently and sidled past her. “Good luck, Lady Felicia. And thank you.”

A moment later she was tapping lightly on Sid’s door. “’M awake,” came a response, and she slipped inside. He gave her a sleepy grin. “What, didn’t you get enough of me downstairs?”

“Who could ever get enough of you?” she teased as she settled onto the edge of the mattress. The night beyond his window was clear, and copious moonlight was spilling into the room. Thank goodness for that; they could do without any more storms for a while. 

Sid chuckled. “The Inspector, for starters.”

“Oh, I don’t know. I passed by him on the way here this afternoon, and he looked positively forlorn. In fact, I think I saw him shade his eyes and peer towards the presbytery as if he was just hoping you’d show up and give him something to do.”

“Oh, yeah? Poor bloke. Guess I’d better hurry up and get back to causing trouble and giving him headaches.”

“You seem to give him plenty of headaches without ever actually causing trouble,” Felicia laughed. “Personally, I think you should keep trying the ‘lie around in bed’ model for another few weeks and see how it goes.”

“I can probably manage that. I owe you a favor or two, anyway.”

Felicia blinked down at him. “For what, exactly?”

Sid stared at her as if the answer should have been obvious. “Uh, for destroying the Rolls Royce that you literally pay me to _not_ drive into buildings?”

“How many times do I have to tell you that I don’t care about the car?” She’d already said as much at least a dozen times. “I can buy another car, Sid. You’re what’s irreplaceable.”

“D’aww,” Sid simpered.

Felicia crossed her arms – a more difficult endeavor than usual with one wrist bandaged – and mock-glared. “You know, it’s moments like these that make me understand why Mrs. McCarthy sometimes looks like she wants to smack you.”

“Well, go ahead if you want. I won’t feel it ‘til morning. I get to take the good stuff at bedtime. And it works faaaaaast.”

“You know I’m not going to hit you.” She uncrossed her arms. “...There is something you could do for me, though. Assuming, of course, that you remember this conversation when you’re no longer high as a kite.”

“What is it, then?” He tried to sound put-upon, but Felicia detected a veiled eagerness in his voice.

“It’s...about what happened in the conservatory. It’s...” She hadn’t expected it to be this hard to address face-to-face with him. The fact that all the levity had fallen out of his expression didn’t help. Felicia felt her eyes start to burn anew. “Sid, I don’t ever want that to happen again.”

“...Y’know, Lady F., you sure know how to kill a high.” He stared up at the ceiling, refusing to meet her gaze. “I can’t promise that. I wish I could, and not just ‘cause you’re asking for it. Maybe a few weeks ago I would have promised – it hasn’t been like it was that night in a long, long time, years, since before you even came to Kembleford – but not now.” 

Finally, he looked at her. “I’ll tell you what I told the Father a few days ago. The odds seem pretty good that it won’t happen again, at least not like that. That bad. The sounds were just so...” 

“So similar,” she nodded. She remembered the way her own fear had crept back in. “So specific, but-”

“But not specific, at the same time. Just...angry.” 

“Like Armageddon.”

“Yeah. Like that. And I don’t suspect I qualify as a _repentant_ sinner, so...” Sid closed his eyes, took as deep a breath as the wrappings around his ribs would allow, and let it out slowly. “...You get it. It probably won’t ever happen again, leastwise not around here. But now that I know it _can_ happen here...I don’t want to break any promise I make to you. So don’t ask me to make that one.”

Sid’s right hand was propped up on a pillow above the covers. Felicia covered it gently with her own. “I had a different promise in mind, actually.”

“...Like what?”

“Like that you’ll go and talk to the doctor I made you an appointment with for next Thursday.” 

He studied her for a long second. “You didn’t go and _actually_ make me an appointment with a ruddy headshrinker?”

“Yes.”

He grimaced. “And I s’pose you’re insisting on paying for it, too.”

“Yes.” She didn’t mention that she intended to pay for any and every future appointment that the doctor thought might help, as well. Sid no doubt understood that that was her plan, but he would see it as too grand of a gesture if it was acknowledged out loud. Even though he’d appreciate it, he’d feel bound to refuse. It was better to leave the future as an unspoken agreement.

“The Father said you might.” Sid shook his head. “I’m not crazy, Lady F.”

“Of course you’re not crazy. None of us think that. But if we have to watch you go through another fit like that – if _I_ have to watch it, Sid – at least one person who is in this house right now will be.” 

He glanced at her, then away. “I don’t think it’ll do any good-”

“Sid, _please_ -”

“-But I’ll go.”

Felicia was so ecstatic at that news that she tightened her fingers on Sid’s arm. When he yelped, she yanked her hand back. “Oh, Sid, I’m so sorry, I...are you laughing?”

“S’either...that...or cry,” he gasped. “...Ow. Fuck. Sorry. Hurts.”

“I thought you were on ‘the good stuff’?”

“So did I. Apparently it’s not as good as it was making itself out to be.”

Neither of them spoke for a minute as Sid wrestled with his pain. When he’d calmed, Felicia ventured a question. “...You’ll really go?”

“I said I would, didn’t I?”

“Yes, but you also said you don’t think it will help.” 

“I don’t. But you do. And the Father thinks it might. And I feel pretty safe assuming that Mrs. M.’s on your side, too. So I’ll go, ‘cause I’d rather spend an hour reliving the worst day of my life than disappoint all three of you in one shot.” One corner of his mouth pipped upward. “Now who’s being sappy, huh?”

Felicia gave him a watery smile. “It must be the drugs, after all.”

“Must be.”

“Then I’m going to leave,” Felicia said, rising, “so you can go to sleep.”

Sid snorted. “Don’t think I’ll sleep much between now and Thursday, being honest.” 

The bravado of a moment before had slipped, and Felicia caught a glimpse of a haunted sort of fear behind Sid’s gaze. Bending close, she brushed a strand of hair from his forehead and pressed a tender kiss to his unbroken temple. “Try, Sid,” she whispered. “For me.”

“Well, seeing’s it’s for you...okay.”

She was at the door when he spoke again. “...Hey. Lady F. You're, ah...you’re coming with, right? To the...on Thursday?”

It was Felicia’s turn to look as if something should have been obvious. “Of course I am.”

Sid smiled, his face settling into tired but satisfied lines. “That’s alright, then.” And he closed his eyes. 

Before ten seconds had gone by, Felicia knew he had passed into sleep. “It will be, darling,” she whispered. The words were half-prayer, half-promise. “...It will be.”


End file.
